As tax hikes loom, gov’s budget grows

Gov. Deval Patrick, who’s been touring the state asking residents to tighten their belts to fund billions in new taxes, has been lavishing taxpayers’ money on rental cars, meals and more staff in a Corner Office budget that has skyrocketed over the past four years.

Scientist Wei-Hock Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has been a key voice arguing against the cause and effect relationship between greenhouse gases and global climate change. But Soon, who has offered his perspective on conservative news programs and testified for Congress, failed to disclose conflicts of interest in the form of $1.2 million from the fossil-fuel industry.

A national society of high-risk obstetricians urged doctors to be more vigilant about prenatal screening tests in response to a New England Center for Investigative Reporting story that showed that some doctors and patients are placing too much faith in new tests, with some women inadvertently aborting healthy fetuses.